The Planet
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The Galápagos Unveiled
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The Season: Sitting on the equator, the Galápagos Islands have two seasons, the wet (January to June, when it's humid and temperatures are in the mid- to high eighties), and the dry (July to December, when temps are a few degrees cooler). Year-round, you're bound to see phenomenal wildlife, except during an
El Niño year, when normally arid regions at sea level grow lush and green and the animal life—from iguanas to penguins—Is decimated by warming sea temperatures.
Getting Around: Virtually the only way to see the Galápagos is by tour boat; the larger boats offer the most experienced guides and cut down on island-to-island travel time. Seven nights on Lindblad Expeditions's 80-passenger MS Polaris(including meals, taxes, entry fees, and two nights in a hotel in
Guayaquil; 800-425-2724) start at $2,980, double occupancy; Lindblad also offers a combined air package (Miami to Guayaquil round-trip on American, Guayaquil to Baltra round-trip on TAME for $850). Metropolitan Touring, based in Quito, offers seven nights on its 90-passenger Santa Cruz starting at $2,099 per person (800-527-2500). Diving trips
can be booked on Angermeyer's Enchanted Excursions's motor- and sail-powered Sulidae and Cachalote; call 593-2-569-960 in Quito, or visit www.angermeyer.com
What to Pack: The sun is fierce, so pack sunglasses, sunblock, hats, quick-drying shorts, and long-sleeved shirts along with your bathing suit and rugged sandals. A light jacket is handy for nights aboard ship and for hikes at higher elevations. Trails can be rocky, so take hiking shoes. A wetsuit makes
snorkeling more bearable (water temps vary from 78 to 68 degrees depending on the season); many boats carry snorkeling equipment. Also, bring binoculars to spot the little vermillion flycatchers.
What to Read: Darwin's chapter on the Galápagos in Voyage of The Beagle is a must. Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch gives you a bird's-eye view of Peter and Rosemary Grant's 20-year study of Darwin's finches on Daphne Major, a tiny island you'll see as you depart from
Baltra. Pierre Constant's The Galápagos Islands: A Natural History Guide is packed with maps and tips for divers; Galápagos: A Natural History, by Michael H. Jackson, is particularly good on animal and plant life. The Ecuador Handbook, by
Julian Smith, from Moon Travel Handbooks, has an excellent nuts-and-bolts section on everything from weather conditions to a list of outfitted trips in the Galápagos. —C.F.
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AFTER SEVEN DAYS cruising the waters of the Galápagos, we're delivered back to Guayaquil and brought to the city's central square, known as Parque de los Iguanas, to see some more of the critters before we go home. The place is crawling with free-range iguanas the size of terriers, clambering in the trees and swarming around trays into which people
throw lettuce and fruit. They're the bright, neon-green iguanas of mainland South America, garish, streetwise cousins of the clean-living marine iguanas of the Galápagos, with dangling dewlaps and a decadent string of fringe down their backs. They look as if they could mug somebody.
A long time ago, a couple of their ancestors became among the first tourists in the islands. During a period of heavy rains, possibly during an El Niño year, they may have been swept out to sea on a raft of earth, a chunk of land that broke off from a riverbank, carrying whole trees and hapless animals as it sailed off into the Pacific, caught in
the current until it hit land: the Galápagos.
The iguanas had no choice but to stay and get on with their lives, evolving into something unprecedented and miraculously cunning: the only reptiles on the planet that can swim in the sea, eat algae, and snort salt through their snouts. On each island, they adapted, developing to survive the environment, becoming the fat red-and-black iguanas of
Española or the wily little masturbators of Genovesa.
Sometime after the iguanas' big adventure, Darwin dropped by. He rode a few tortoises and pulled a few tails, not yet aware that he would one day change the course of human history. Now you, too, can come see what Darwin gawked at not so long ago: "that mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth." But know, as you stroll
along a trail among creatures found nowhere else, that you are implicated—For good or ill—in the evolution going on around you. Watch your step. 
Caroline Fraser is the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church and reviews books for Outside.
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